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Talks to 
Baptist 

Young 
People 




HENRY C. VEDDER 



TALKS TO 
BAPTIST YOUNG PEOPLE 



BY 



HENRY C. VEDDER 







MqpCLO, 



/ 



PHILADELPHIA 

American Baptist Publication Society 
1895 



1 




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Copyright 1895 by the 
American Baptist Publication Society 



PREFATORY NOTE 



With a single exception, the addresses composing this little 
volume were given to many audiences besides the one specific- 
ally mentioned in each case, but were not committed to writing 
until they had been thus delivered many times. Numerous 
suggestions came to the author that they should be given the 
still wider publicity of the press. This is now done, with the 
cordial approval of the Executive Committee of the Baptist . 
Young People" s Union of Ainerica, in the hope that they may 
make clearer to the large number who still see7n to misappre- 
hend them, the spirit and purpose of the young people' s move- 
ment of our day. 

H. C v. 

Crozer Seminary , July , i8q$. 



i 



TALKS TO BAPTIST YOUNG PEOPLE 



THE RELATIONS BETWEEN THE BAPTIST 
YOUNG PEOPLE'S UNION AND CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOR 1 

I LAY claim to but one qualification for the dis- 
cussion of this theme, but that is somewhat 
exceptional. In the good providence of God it has 
been my lot to be an active worker in all the forms of 
organization found among our Baptist young people. 
For many years I have been a member of the 
Calvary Baptist Church of New York, and until 
recently was a member of and an active worker in 
its Young People's Association. This association 
antedates those forms of organization now common, 
having an honorable history of over twenty years. 
Long before the first Society of Christian Endeavor 
was formed it was a thriving and useful body, and 
it promises to be such after many societies of more 
recent date have disintegrated and been forgotten. 
Several years ago I became a resident of Staten 
Island, and in the village where I live there is no 

1 An address delivered before the Yates County Baptist Young 
People's Union Convention at Penn Yan, September 5, 1893. 

5 



6 TALKS TO BAPTIST YOUNG PEOPLE 

Baptist church, but an old and interesting church of 
that noble and devoted body of Christians known as 
the Moravians, or Unitas Fratrum. My wife and I 
were invited to join the Society of Christian En- 
deavor connected with this church, and did so ; and 
not long after, to my great astonishment, the mem- 
bers honored me by electing me the president of 
the society. When the New York State Baptist 
Young People's Union was organized, I was present 
and took part in the organization, and have since 
been an active and hearty worker in its service. 

Being thus fully identified with these three 
forms of organization, thoroughly believing in the 
good points of each and a bigot to the supposed ex- 
cellences of neither, I shall not be suspected here 
of holding a brief for any one form of organization. 
I can speak my mind with the utmost freedom, with 
some presumption in my favor of impartiality and 
candor. 

What is known as the young people's movement 
is no temporary affair, no mere spasm of interest, 
no craze from which a speedy recovery is to be 
anticipated. There may have been a time when 
there was room for doubt as to the permanence 
and worth of this movement. Even those who were 
its founders, and are its leaders, did not at first 
have vision of its value, significance, and possibili- 
ties. Many times they have stood dumb before the 
facts of divine providence, or able only to say with 



TALKS TO BAPTIST YOUNG PEOPLE 7 

profound gratitude and deep humility, " What hath 
God wrought ! " The eager haste of some to pre- 
dict the decline of the movement only proves that 
their wish is father to the thought. However 
excusable such a thought may have been at 
one time, now that the movement has passed its 
experimental stage, now that its triumphs have ex- 
tended literally around the globe and among every 
people, to predict its failure is to proclaim one's 
folly. It is passing strange indeed, that any Chris- 
tian man or woman should be so blind. O fools 
and slow of heart are we to believe, not only all that 
the prophets have spoken, but all that God by his 
providence now speaks. His revolutions never go 
backward, and the man is to be pitied who cannot 
see in this mighty uprising of young Christians 
God's message to his church, writ large across the 
world. 

The young people's association in the local church 
is no new thing. Some of us who are not yet guilty 
of gray hairs have been members of such associa- 
tions for more than a quarter of a century. As they 
existed years ago they were frequently, not to say 
usually, defective in one or two directions. Many 
of them were organized mainly on the social basis. 
Though they maintained a prayer meeting, often at 
a poor dying rate, their chief business was the se- 
curing of " a good time " for members. Now a 
good time is all right. Few are so foolish as to 



8 TALKS TO BAPTIST YOUNG PEOPLE 

expect young people to go through life to the music 
of the "Dead March in Saul." But then, neither 
can they be expected to skip through life to the 
music of a jig. Amusement is good, but it is not 
the chief end of man. Another practical difficulty 
in the history of young people's associations in the 
past has been that they were societies entirely inde- 
pendent of the church, self-originated and autono- 
mous. Not unnaturally there was often friction, 
if not open conflict — suspicion, if not jealousy — ex- 
isting between the church and the young people's 
society. 

It was a great step forward when Father Endeavor 
Clark founded the Society of Christian Endeavor. 
For the first time the right keynote was struck. 
The fundamental basis of Christian Endeavor is 
spiritual, not social. It does not eschew the social 
element, but it lays emphasis in the right place, the 
relation of the young Christian to the Lord Jesus 
Christ. In place of being independent of the 
church, it insists as its first principle that it is an 
integral part of the church. All other organizations 
for young people have lacked this principle. Even 
the Young Men's Christian Association, great and 
good as is the work it has done and still does, has 
this primary defect of constitution. Association 
work is a co-operative work carried on by members 
of different churches, and it necessarily withdraws 
the workers in some measure from sympathy and 



TALKS TO BAPTIST YOUNG PEOPLE 9 

labor with their own church. The true principle 
for a young people's organization was first formu- 
lated by Dr. Clark : loyalty to church — not merely 
to the church, the whole body of believers in Christ, 
but to a church, the local church of which each 
Endeavorer is a member. 

This is a principle that particularly commends it- 
self to Baptists. Whatever others may think or say 
or do, we are bound to believe that the Lord Jesus 
made no mistake when he said: "Upon this rock I 
will build my church, and the gates of Hades shall not 
prevail against it." The young people have now laid 
hold of a principle that ensures the perpetuity of 
their work, so long as there is a Christian church, 
so long as there are young people to be saved and 
trained. We supply a need that is not temporary 
but permanent, and we do this by making fast to 
a principle that has the authority of Christ him- 
self. " Hitch your wagon to a star," was Emerson's 
advice to the young man who would get on. This 
was only his way of saying that one must link his 
life to some vital and enduring principle if he would 
have any strong or permanent influence on man- 
kind. The young Christian of to-day has hitched 
his wagon to a star, the star of the promise of the 
Christ. 

But, like all other human institutions, Christian 
Endeavor is not perfect. It has emphasized two 
great and important principles — loyalty to Christ, 



IO TALKS TO BAPTIST YOUNG PKOPLE 

loyalty to his church. It has afforded a welcome 
and much-needed opportunity for the training of 
young people in Christian service. Its defect is 
that it makes no provision for the mind. The be- 
ginning of a Christian experience is very likely to 
contain a large emotional element, and this is both 
natural and proper. The experience of realizing 
that one is a sinner, without hope of eternal life 
save through the blood of Christ, and the joy that 
follows God's acceptance of an honest submission 
of heart and will to Christ, will rightly be cherished 
through life as something unspeakably precious. 

But Christians have minds to be fed, as well as 
souls to be saved. The Christian life cannot be 
maintained, Christian character cannot be built up, 
on emotion. The spiritual life, to have a sure 
permanence and growth, must be based on knowl- 
edge. It is the recognition of this fact that is dis- 
tinctive in the organization known as the Baptist 
Young People's Union. The striking feature of 
Christian Endeavor is its pledge, with its promise 
of loyalty to Christ and the church. The feature 
that in like manner distinguishes the Baptist Young 
People's Union is its educational committee, with 
its work of denominational enlistment and training. 

It will be seen that there is nothing in the prin- 
ciples of the Baptist Young People's Union an- 
tagonistic to Christian Endeavor. It is supple- 
mentary, complementary rather. Christian En- 



TALKS TO BAPTIST YOUNG PEOPLE II 

deavor is incomplete ; the Baptist Young People's 
Union supplies what it lacks, the educational ele- 
ment. It is equally a fact that there is nothing in 
the policy of the Baptist Young People's Union 
that is antagonistic to Christian Endeavor. What 
has seemed to be antagonism in the past was the 
error of a few with which the many had no 
sympathy. That error was finally buried by the 
Chicago Convention in 1891, when the national or- 
ganization, the Baptist Young People's Union of 
America, was effected, and if anything remained to 
be done in the Empire State, it was accomplished 
by the convention held at Troy in June, 1892, at 
which the Baptist Young People's Union of the 
State of New York w r as organized. The basis of 
these and all other affiliated organizations is as 
broad as the denomination. All Baptist young 
people, however organized, whether organized or 
not, are invited to join in securing "the increased 
spirituality of our Baptist young people ; their 
stimulation in Christian service ; their edification 
in Scripture knowledge ; their instruction in Bap- 
tist doctrine and history, and their enlistment in all 
missionary activity through existing denominational 
organizations. " Two things are especially note- 
worthy in this declaration of principles. First, 
that the primary end of the organization is the de- 
velopment and training of Baptist young people ; 
and, secondly, that the end of this training is to 



12 TALKS TO BAPTIST YOUNG PEOPLE 

make the young people loyal supporters of and 
earnest workers with, existing denominational or- 
ganizations. There is neither intention nor wish 
to multiply societies. 

The relations, therefore, between Christian En- 
deavor and the Baptist Young People's Union are, 
and of right should be, relations of mutual respect, 
fraternal love, and harmonious co-operation. If here- 
after there should be any antagonism between the 
two organizations, it will be due, not to their lead- 
ers, those charged with official responsibility in the 
conduct of the work, but to irresponsible indi- 
viduals, and it must be set down to either crass 
ignorance or unsanctified human nature. 

The principle cannot be too strongly emphasized 
that no Christian Endeavor society now existing in 
a Baptist church is required to make any sacrifice 
of principle or change of organization. What it is 
aimed to accomplish is not the reorganization but 
the affiliation of our young people. The only 
thing any society need do is to add the educational 
committee to its existing committees, and then go 
to work. It is just as simple as that. Whoever 
says anything else to you, either does not under- 
stand the matter or is willfully trying to mislead 
you. The leaders of our Baptist hosts do not make 
a test of fellowship of any name, of any form of 
organization, of any method of work. The one 
bond of unity among Baptists is the New Testa- 



■HH 



TALKS TO BAPTIST YOUNG PEOPLE 13 

ment, in the full affirmation of whose teachings we 
are one people, with one mission. 

If these friendly relations between the various 
societies shall be maintained and the educational 
work planned by the Baptist Young People's Union 
shall be effectively carried out, there are certain 
results that we may reasonably anticipate : 

1. We shall retain everything that is valuable 
and inspiring in Christian Endeavor. We cannot 
do better as Baptist young people than continually 
to emphasize the spiritual nature of our work and 
the duty of loyalty each one to his own church. 
Aunt Dinah was famous for her rhubarb pies. One 
day one of her admirers asked her, "Aunt Dinah, 
how is it that you always have such good pies ? " 
" I tell you, chile," she replied, " I puts in all de 
sugar my conscience will let me, and den I shuts 
my eyes and puts in anoder handful." Aunt Dinah 
knew there is little danger of making a rhubarb pie 
too sweet, and there is little danger too, that our 
lives will be sweetened by too much devotion to 
Christ and his church. Follow the old cook's rec- 
ipe : put all the loyalty into the work that your 
conscience demands, and then put in another hand- 
ful for good measure. 

2. We shall add a much-needed element of de- 
nominational esprit. As Baptists we have been too 
shy, too fearful of asserting our principles. We 
need more denominational self-respect, a juster de- 



14 TALKS TO BAPTIST YOUNG PEOPLE 

nominational pride, a confident feeling that we have 
a right to be. There is a common feeling among 
us that it is not quite the thing to be too Baptist. 
Well, that depends on what kind of a Baptist you 
are ; you cannot be too much of the right kind of 
a Baptist or be such a Baptist too much of the 
time. There is such a thing as a self-respecting 
denominationalism, a firm conviction that the dis- 
tinctive principles of our Baptist faith are true and 
are worth standing for everywhere and at all times. 
There is also such a thing as an offensive and bitter 
and narrow sectarianism, that can see nothing good 
outside of denominational lines, and pronounces 
everything bad that does not bear the Baptist 
brand. Sectarianism is unlovely ; I exhort all Bap- 
tists, young or old, to avoid it. Denominationalism 
is praiseworthy ; cultivate it assiduously. We may 
be Baptists, loyal in every fibre of our being to the 
distinctive principles of our denomination, without 
being bigots. For myself, I glory in denomina- 
tionalism ; I should be covered with shame if I 
were a sectary. Others may do as they please, 
but I will never confess that I cannot be at the 
same time a loyal and consistent Baptist and a 
broad-minded, catholic Christian. 

3. We shall still keep in touch with Christians 
of all names. Nothing could persuade some of us 
to forego the blessed interdenominational fel- 
lowship we have enjoyed when we have met in con- 



TALKS TO BAPTIST YOUNG PEOPLE 1 5 

ference with other Christian brethren in this work. 
From some of these meetings we have gone in a 
very ecstasy of holy love and consecrated zeal. 
Never before, nor since, have we had so joyous and 
triumphant a faith that the kingdoms of this world 
shall become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his 
Christ. Never have we had such a vision of the 
King in his beauty. We shall be in no danger of 
loving Christ less if we love our brethren more. 
Let us cherish every opportunity of meeting with 
them and of joining them in all good works. There 
is little danger now that any one of us will forget 
that he belongs to a church ; there is much danger 
that we may forget that we belong to the church — 
the fellowship of all true believers throughout the 
world. Let us, while loyal to our own convictions, 
loyal to our own denomination, fervently join in the 
profession of faith : " I believe in the Holy Catholic 
Church." 

One afternoon I stood at my office window and 
looked down upon a wonderful sight. It was Co- 
lumbus day. In the spacious and beautiful harbor 
of New York were gathered the warships of all na- 
tions, and they had sent detachments of their sail- 
ors and marines to grace the pageant. The serried 
ranks swept by to the inspiring music of their na- 
tional airs. There were Germans, marching with 
the precision of marines ; Frenchmen and Italians, 
less regular of step, but showing a verve and esprit 



IO TALKS TO BAPTIST YOUNG PEOPLE 

most admirable ; Russians, great bearded giants, 
ready to do and die for the White Tsar. But most 
impressive of all to me were the English sailors, 
marching with a swing, a solidity, a sweep that sug- 
gested unconquerable power ; and, as one gazed, he 
wondered no longer that Britain's colonies dot the 
globe, or that her morning drum-beat, " beginning 
with the sun and keeping company with the hours, 
encircles the earth with one continuous and un- 
broken strain of the martial airs of England.' ' But 
I see to-day sweeping on, and my ear catches the 
rhythm of their tramp, a mightier, a more heroic 
band. The consecrated host of God's elect is 
marching forth to the conquest of the world. 
All nations have furnished their quota toward that 
a^my. And in the foremost ranks I see a great 
company of young men and women, of indomitable 
purpose and irresistible might, bearing aloft indeed 
banners of various device, but animated by one 
spirit and loyal to one Master — a company that has 
dotted the surface of the globe with their taber- 
nacles of prayer, whose evening song keeping com- 
pany with the hours, encircles the earth with one 
continuous and unbroken strain of thanksgiving and 
praise to him that sitteth upon the throne for ever 
and ever. Amen and Amen ! 



II 



THE MESSAGE 
OF GOD TO THE BAPTISTS OF TO-DAY 1 

IN October, 1635, a minister of the gospel, of 
blameless character, for the heinous offense of 
maintaining that the civil magistrate has no author- 
ity in matters of religion, was ordered within six 
weeks to depart from the colony of Massachusetts. 
This sentence was passed by men professing to be 
followers of Jesus Christ, men who had come to 
this country, as an American humorist shrewdly 
says, " To worship God according to the dictates of 
their own consciences and to prevent other people 
from worshiping him according to theirn." Driven 
forth from civilized society by this cruel decree, the 
apostle of soul liberty found the wilderness more 
hospitable than a Puritan commonwealth, and expe- 
rienced greater kindness from the wild beasts and 
the scarcely less savage Indians than from men and 
women who followed Jesus indeed, but, like Peter, 
followed him afar off. Making his way in the dead 
of winter through primeval forests where the foot 
of white man never before had trodden, Roger 

1 An address before the Maryland Baptist Social Union at Baltimore, 
March 13, 1894. 

B 17 



l8 TALKS TO BAPTIST YOUNG PEOPLE 

Williams came to Narragansett Bay. In June, 
1636, having been joined by a few other adventur- 
ous spirits, he founded a colony and named it Provi- 
dence. The cornerstone of the colony was the 
principle of religious liberty. This was a concep- 
tion to which no government on earth had then 
risen. A few men here and there, a single State in 
Europe under the leadership of William of Orange, 
had come so far as to hold that those who dissented 
from them were to be tolerated. They were actu- 
ally willing to concede that Christian men should 
not burn and hang, or even fine and imprison other 
Christians who differed with them about a diph- 
thong. They would consent to " tolerate" heresy. 
The colony of Rhode Island was the first civil 
government founded on earth that recognized the 
absolute and equal liberty of all men in matters of 
religion, and denied the right of the State to inter- 
fere in matters of religion or to show a preference 
for one religious body over another. 

Not long after the founding of this colony, Roger 
Williams was convinced, by his study of the Scrip- 
tures, that he had never received scriptural bap- 
tism, and a number of his fellow-colonists shared 
his conviction. There was no other minister within 
many hundred miles ; there was no scripturally 
baptized minister on the American continent. Ac- 
cordingly, there was but one thing to. do, and Wil- 
liams did it. He buried in baptism Ezekiel Holli- 



TALKS TO BAPTIST YOUNG PEOPLE 1 9 

man, and Ezekiel Holliman in turn baptized him. 
Eleven others obeyed their Lord at this time, and 
the First Baptist Church of Providence, the first 
Baptist church on American soil, was then and there 
formed. 

Beyond all question, the Baptists of America 
have had a wonderful history — -there is not a more 
wonderful chapter in all the ages of the Christian 
church. In spite of the persecutions to which they 
were subjected almost everwhere, they continued to 
thrive and multiply. Massachusetts banished and 
whipped them ; New York fined and imprisoned 
them, and drove them from her borders ; Virginia 
cast them into prison for preaching the gospel and 
even for hearing it. They endured, as seeing him 
who is invisible. Through their endurance, their 
steadfast advocacy of complete religious liberty, at 
length they conquered, and the principle for which 
they contended became a part of the fundamental 
law both of the nation and of every State compos- 
ing the Union. God made our forefathers in the 
faith the means of forwarding his cause among 
men, because they had the clearness of vision to 
read his message to the Baptists of that day, and 
had the wisdom and courage to follow the leadings 
of God's providence. 

When the settlement of the great West began, 
another era opened in our history. The Baptist 
circuit preachers followed close after the first set- 



20 talks to baptist young people 

tiers. Carrying their library (a Bible and a hymn- 
book) in their saddle-bags, they traversed this new 
country, preaching everywhere the blessed gospel of 
the grace of God, sharing all the hardships of a pio- 
neer people, making hazardous journeys, in peril 
from floods, from wild beasts, from the savage In- 
dians. Their places of worship were God's own 
temples, the groves and woods. Their parish, as 
one of them said, took in all creation, for it had no 
boundary on the West. These men, uncouth as 
they would now seem in our fashionable pulpits, led 
multitudes to Christ, founded churches, and laid 
broad and deep foundations of denominational pros- 
perity, on which we build to-day. 

Do we realize how phenomenal was the growth 
that ensued ? At the beginning of the Revolution 
the Baptists certainly did not number over ten thou- 
sand ; they now number more than three and a 
half millions. In 1776 there was one Baptist to 
each two hundred and sixty-four of the population ; 
according to the last census there is one Baptist to 
every twenty of the population. The growth of the 
denomination has continuously exceeded, and still 
exceeds the growth of the population, but the excess 
is not now so great and surprising as it formerly 
was. During the past fifty years there has been a 
steady and continuous decline in the rate of our de- 
nominational progress. 

Why this extraordinary growth ? Why this 



TALKS TO BAPTIST YOUNG PEOPLE 21 

equally remarkable decline ? Why does our rate of 
increase grow smaller year by year, until, if present 
conditions continue, by the next century the popu- 
lation will be increasing faster than the denomina- 
tion ? Because in the years gone by Baptists 
hearkened to the message of God, in his word and 
through his providence. They were like the men of 
Issachar, who had understanding of the times and 
knew what Israel ought to do. They were prompt to 
take advantage of every opportunity that God gave 
them, and made the most of it. Baptists of to-day 
are in danger of losing what their fathers won, and 
for which they paid so high a price, because we are 
degenerate sons of those sires, because we refuse 
to enter the open door of opportunity, because we 
shut our eyes and ears to the message that God now 
gives us. What is that message ? Let me answer 
by giving you another bit of history. 

On the second of February, 1881, the young 
pastor of a Congregational church in Portland, 
Maine, called a few of his young people to a meet- 
ing in his study. There had been a revival in his 
church, especially among the young people, a large 
number of whom had made a public profession of 
their faith ; and this pastor, like many another be- 
fore and since, was anxious about them. He 
wished for some means of training them in Chris- 
tian service, in close connection with and subordina- 
tion to the church and pastor. Then and there the 



22 TALKS TO BAPTIST YOUNG PEOPLE 

first Young People's Society of Christian Endeavor 
was formed. You all know the history of that 
society, how neighboring pastors, seeing its suc- 
cessful workings, adopted it in their churches ; and 
so the society grew naturally and without artificial 
urging or spasmodic efforts, until it has reached its 
present wonderful proportions, a membership of one 
million seven hundred thousand, 1 and counts its 
converts annually by the hundred thousand. When 
Luther nailed his thesis to the door of the church 
in Wittenberg he had no idea that every blow of 
that hammer drove a nail into the coffin of super- 
stition and intolerance — that he was beginning a 
revolution that should shake all Europe with its 
throes. When Father Endeavor Clark held that 
meeting in his Maine study, he little dreamed that 
he was beginning one of the greatest religious 
movements in modern times. 

The hand that rounded Peter's dome, 
And groined the aisles of Christian Rome, 
Wrought in a sad sincerity ; 
Himself from God he could not free ; 
He builded better than he knew ; 
The conscious stone to beauty grew. 

This movement is the message of God to the 
Baptists to-day. It says as plainly as Providence 
can say anything : Organize, educate the young 

1 Before the year was ended it had passed the two million mark. 



TALKS TO BAPTIST YOUNG PEOPLE 23 

Christians committed by God to your charge. And 
yet there are those among us so blind and deaf to 
this message that they deny the wisdom, the scrip- 
turalness even, of any and all organizations of young 
people. 

Most questions have at least two sides, and in 
general my angle of vision is broad enough to take 
in both, but I confess that this question seems to 
me to have but one side, and but one possible an- 
swer, and that an emphatic "Yes." If any peo- 
ple should be organized, the young people should 
be, for two unanswerable reasons : In the first place, 
the young people themselves need the development, 
the discipline, that organization will give them in 
the formative stage of their character ; and the 
church needs the concentrated power, the kindling 
enthusiasm, that the young people can bring to it. 

And the young people will be organized — be sure 
of that. Remember the historic contest of Mrs. 
Partington with the Atlantic Ocean in its fury. 
Mrs. Partington's blood was up; but while she was 
exceedingly good at an ordinary puddle, when she 
and her mop were pitted against the Atlantic there 
could be only one issue to the struggle. Brethren, 
we may hinder, but we cannot prevent, the organi- 
zation of the Baptist young people. The great 
question that confronts us is not, Shall our young- 
people be organized ? — it is too late in the day to be 
discussing a question that the providence of God 



24 TALKS TO BAPTIST YOUNG PEOPLE 

has already answered for us — the great question is, 
How shall our young people be organized ? That 
is a hard question for some to answer, but it doesn't 
puzzle a Baptist a bit ; to this and all other like 
questions he has his answer pat : Our young people 
must be organized according to the principles of the 
New Testament, and in no other way. To the law 
and the testimony is our appeal in every case of 
this kind. 

Now what do we find when we interrogate the 
New Testament on this point ? We find one agency, 
one body, for the evangelization of the world — and 
but one. " Upon this rock," said the Lord Jesus, " I 
will build my church, and the gates of Hades shall 
not prevail against it." Any organization, any so- 
ciety, that attempts to evangelize the world inde- 
pendently of the church, is disloyal to that church, 
and therefore disloyal to the Lord who instituted it. 
As Baptists we believe that all Christian service 
may be most effective for good, as it is most pleas- 
ing to God, when rendered in due loyalty and sub- 
ordination to his church. 

But I beg you to observe that a New Testament 
church is not a machine ; it is an organism. A 
machine is a thing that works only in one way, and 
according to one adjustment that has been contrived 
by its maker ; but an organism has the power to ad- 
just itself to its environment, an organism can do 
anything that does not transcend the fundamental 



TALKS TO BAPTIST YOUNG PEOPLE 25 

laws of its being. The church adapts itself to its 
environment through two methods, specialization 
and co-operation. 

You are all familiar with the economic doctrine of 
the division of labor. The time was when every house- 
hold produced all that was consumed by it ; now the 
members devote themselves each to his special trade 
or business, exchanging the surplus of their labor 
for other things as these are required. On no other 
terms can men compete successfully with their rivals, 
and make a living. There has been a specializing 
within the church, in the work of the Sunday-school, 
in the holding of meetings for special classes, in mis- 
sionary societies, in temperance societies. In some 
sections and in some churches this has gone farther 
than in others, but there is hardly a Baptist church 
that has not done something in this line. And any 
Baptist church that has a Sunday-school is estopped 
from objecting on principle to the organization of 
its young people. Whether the specialization is 
according to Scripture or not depends on one thing 
and only one : are these different forms of activity 
organic parts of the church ? Do they exist by the 
authority of the church as a whole, in strict subor- 
dination to the church, in unswerving loyalty to the 
church ? If they do, they are scriptural ; they are 
the wise exercise of the liberty wherewith Christ 
has made us free. If they are separate entities, 
existing without authority of the church, and more 



26 TALKS TO BAPTIST YOUNG PEOPLE 

or less insubordinate, jealous, antagonistic, and dis- 
loyal, then they are unscriptural and harmful, and 
cannot be too soon abolished. 

I claim that the organization of young Christians 
bears this test triumphantly. What is now known 
distinctively as "the young people's movement" 
puts loyal subordination to the church in the fore- 
front of its constitution. Tfrose who are charged 
with its leadership are never weary of saying to the 
young people, in public and in private, " Organize 
your society with the advice and consent of the 
church, subject to its authority, and in all things 
be loyal to church and pastor as you are loyal to 
Christ." 

The other great principle of the development 
seen in modern life is co-operation. Our Baptist 
churches have applied this law of co-operation to 
religious work outside of the church. Thus our 
churches first form local Associations for spiritual 
stimulation and missionary work ; general Associa- 
tions or State conventions for similar objects on a 
larger field ; and still larger conventions or mission- 
ary societies for the evangelizing of continents or 
of the world. Provided they are all voluntary asso- 
ciations, with only advisory and executive powers, 
assuming no legislative authority over the churches 
composing them, these organizations are generally 
recognized among us as scriptural. Any Baptist 
' church that is affiliated with an Association or con- 



TALKS TO BAPTIST YOUNG PEOPLE 2 J 

vention is estopped from any objection on principle 
to the affiliation of its young people. But when 
this principle of co-operation or affiliation is pro- 
posed for young people's work, there is suddenly 
developed a zeal for Scripture and a tender solici- 
tude about the harm that may come to our young 
people that would be touching if it were not ridicu- 
lous. 

This affiliation of the young people, to be scrip- 
tural, should be like their local organizations strictly 
subordinate to the organization of the churches. 
Associational organizations of the young people 
should be formed in connection with and by the 
authority of the regular Associations of the churches ; 
should always meet in connection with the Asso- 
ciations, taking such share in the programme and 
business as may be assigned them ; and should loy- 
ally and heartily co-operate with the parent Asso- 
ciation in all its work. State organizations should 
be formed in a similar way. In so far as these or- 
ganizations assume no legislative authority over our 
young people, and merely exercise advisory func- 
tions, and especially in so far as they act in strict 
subordination to and harmony with the regular 
organizations of the churches, this affiliation of 
Baptist young people is not only scriptural, but it 
is full of promise to every great cause in which 
Baptists are enlisted. The Baptist young people 
of America are a great host — great not only in 



28 TALKS TO BAPTIST YOUNG PEOPLE 

numbers, but in spiritual power, in burning zeal, in 
consecrated intelligence. We cannot afford to let 
this power go to waste, even if we dare withstand 
God's providence. We cannot afford to cast sus- 
picion on their loyalty and risk their permanent 
alienation from the denomination. This is no tirrie 
to suppress their enthusiasm, to nickname their 
organizations, to deny them the rights we assert for 
ourselves. Rather is it a time to grapple them with 
hooks of steel and hold them fast to the great 
throbbing heart of the denomination ; to make a 
place for them in all our work, and give them every 
help to develop into better men and women and 
better Baptists than we ever have been. Men of 
Issachar, ye who have understanding of the times, 
to know what Israel ought to do, let your voices be 
heard in behalf of our Baptist young people before 
the golden opportunity passes. 

There is an additional and urgent reason why Bap- 
tist young people in particular should be organized. 
Youth is especially the time for education, and our 
young people need systematic instruction in our 
distinctive principles such as they have never had 
before. We have suffered greatly because of our 
neglect thus to instruct our young people. The 
sons and daughters of as loyal Baptists as ever 
lived are leaving us for other denominations, and it 
is very hard to find a Baptist family that for three 
generations has enjoyed wealth, culture, and social 



TALKS TO BAPTIST YOUNG PEOPLE 29 

position. In the city of Roger Williams is our 
oldest Baptist institution of learning, named from 
one of its early and generous benefactors, Nicholas 
Brown, a loyal Baptist. The descendants of Nicho- 
las Brown still live in Providence — a family of 
wealth, of culture, of social position — but not one 
of them is a Baptist. This is a sample case, and I 
could give you similar cases by the score, by the 
hundred. But, you will say, this is but half of the 
truth, we have made reprisals ; Pedobaptists by the 
hundreds are baptized into our churches every year. 
In some home in this city to-day there sits a mother 
mourning the loss of her child. Will you go to 
that mother and say, " Sister, do not weep so ; there 
is an orphan asylum in the next street, and you 
may, if you will, adopt three children to-morrow in 
the place of the one you have lost ? " You would 
not be so brutal, nor so silly. For you well know 
that, though this weeping mother may hereafter 
adopt children and love them, they will never take 
the place of the one that has gone. Until her eyes 
meet his in the better world, there will be a cham- 
ber in her heart sacred to him who was bone of her 
bone and flesh of her flesh, who was cradled in her 
arms and breathed his life out on her bosom. And 
I say to you, that all our gains from other flocks, 
though they were ten times as many as now, could 
never make good to us the loss of those of our 
own fold. 



30 TALKS TO BAPTIST YOUNG PEOPLE 

We cast it in the teeth of Roman Catholics that 
they are unable to hold their children ; that when 
these come to years of understanding they leave 
the church. Rome has recognized the danger ; she 
is wise enough to know that a church is doomed if 
it cannot hold its own children, Shall we be blind 
to our danger ? Are Baptist principles of so doubt- 
ful truth that intelligent young people naturally re- 
ject them ? The trouble is not, we shall agree, 
with our principles, but with the imperfect inculca- 
tion of those principles. We have hitherto made 
no adequate provision for the regular and system- 
atic instruction of our young people in Baptist his- 
tory, doctrines, and polity. It is because this fact 
has been recognized by its leaders that the Baptist 
young people's movement has been from the first 
so largely educational in its character. This is in- 
deed, to my mind, its raison d'etre. Too many of 
our people are Baptists by accident, because they 
had a Baptist parentage or were converted in a Bap- 
tist church ; the aim of this movement is to make 
our young people Baptists by intelligent conviction. 
We have been too intent heretofore on mere in- 
crease of members, on merely making the people 
Baptists. We must do better than that, a great 
deal better. We must make the coming generation 
of Baptists so that they will stay made. If the 
organization of our young people for Christian work 
and for systematic instruction in distinctive Baptist 



TALKS TO BAPTIST YOUNG PEOPLE 3 1 

principles will not accomplish this, nothing can ac- 
complish it. 

This policy will help to solve some perplexing 
questions. For instance, there is the ever-recurring 
amusement question. Many a pastor has repeated 
with a sigh the bon mot of Sir George Cornewall 
Lewis, " Life would be very tolerable but for its 
amusements." Of all cases of casuistry that pas- 
tors are required to help their young people in 
solving, none crop up so frequently, none so test 
all the resources of grace and " gumption" with 
which a man may be endowed, as cases that grow 
out of the appetite of the young for amusement. 

Now, while this appetite is a natural and whole- 
some one, when it is in a normal condition, it is too 
often true that it has become abnormal, artificial, 
unwholesome, a morbid craving rather than a health- 
ful appetite. The desire for amusement becomes a 
mental and moral disease, and is productive of great 
evils. A cure is greatly needed, and he who could 
produce a nostrum warranted to be an infallible 
remedy in all cases would not lack patronage. I 
have no such nostrum. It is my belief, however, 
that an effective remedy may be found in many 
cases by imitating a method of the physician. 
Some ailments cannot be successfully treated by 
direct attack, but yield easily to counter-irritation 
or to some stimulation of the vital forces that re- 
acts on the seat of the disorder. 



32 TALKS TO BAPTIST YOUNG PEOPLE 

The trouble with the young Christian too often 
is, that his mind and heart and hands are not occu- 
pied with the things of his Master's kingdom. 

Satan finds some mischief still 
For idle hands to do; 

but whoever read, in Dr. Watts or elsewhere, that 
Satan can find mischief for hands that are busy in 
the service of Christ ? It was into a house swept 
and garnished and empty that the demon returned 
with seven others more wicked than himself, and 
thereby made the last state of that man worse than 
the first. An empty head, an empty heart, these 
are direct invitations to Satan to enter and take up 
his abode, and this is an invitation that the adver- 
sary of souls never declines. You cannot get chaff 
into a measure filled to the brim, pressed down and 
running over with the choicest of the wheat. Let 
the young Christian get his heart full of love for 
Christ, his mind full of his truth, his hands full of 
service, and he will have no time or concern for 
hair-splitting questions about amusements of doubt- 
ful character. It is an indication of a very low 
state of the Christian life, when a follower of Christ 
is habitually perplexing himself and others with 
problems of this kind. It is his glorious privilege 
to rise to a higher plane of experience, where these 
things will have no claim upon his thought. 

It would be idle to deny that the young people's 



TALKS TO BAPTIST YOUNG PEOPLE 33 

movement has its dangers. Of course it has ; 
where there is life there is danger always, and the 
only really safe place in the world is the cemetery. 
But remember the words of Thomas Jefferson : 
" The greatest misfortunes in life are those that never 
happen." The real dangers of this movement are 
trifling compared with the spectres of some men's 
imaginations. 

But it would be idle to deny that the young 
people will make mistakes. Of course they will. 
He who never makes a mistake never makes any- 
thing. But remember again the words of America's 
most eloquent preacher, perhaps his wisest words.: 
" A man who does not know how to learn from his 
mistakes turns the best schoolmaster out of his 
life." The difference between the wise man and 
the fool is not that the former makes no mistakes, 
but that he makes of them stepping-stones to 
higher things ; while, as the wisest of men says in 
the Proverbs : " Though thou shouldest bray a fool 
in a mortar among wheat with a pestle, yet will not 
his foolishness depart from him." 

It is charged that the young people are head- 
strong, fractious, fond of rule — that soon we shall 
have have an army composed of major-generals, 
with nobody willing to serve in the ranks. I deny 
that the movement has any such tendency. It sets 
before us as a constant aim the training of follow- 
ers as well as leaders. After all, they are very 

c 



34 TALKS TO BAPTIST YOUNG PEOPLE 

much like their elders, these young people. You 
remember the retort of sharp-tongued Mrs. Poyser 
when somebody remarked in her hearing that all 
women are fools : " I ain't denyin' that women are 
fools ; I expect God Almighty made 'em to match 
the men." I expect that God has made the young 
people to match their elders, and some are obstinate, 
some are silly, some talk too much, some want to 
" boss " everything. Dear elder brethren, bear with 
our failings patiently, rebuke us faithfully in love 
when we err, and in time — who knows ? — we may 
attain even to your- measure of wisdom, discretion, 
and modesty. Grant us meanwhile the privilege, 
which we observe that our elders occasionally claim 
for themselves, of speaking a word not altogether 
discreet, of doing a thing not precisely savoring of 
Solomon's wisdom. 

I have said that its mission of education is the 
raison d'etre of the young people's movement, but 
I beg you to take this is no narrow sense. This 
culture is not sought for its own sake. The motto 
of the Baptist young people is, " We study that we 
may serve." At one of their great gatherings a 
conspectus of reading and study, recommended to 
the young people of our churches, was suspended 
over the platform, and on either side large fishing 
nets. You catch the idea at once, as they did. 
We do not seek for our Baptist young people cul- 
ture for its own sake — there is nothing more barren 



TALKS TO BAPTIST YOUNG PEOPLE 35 

than mere learning — but a culture that shall fit 
them for Christian service, that shall inspire them 
to Christian conquest. For " they that be wise 
shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and 
they that turn many to righteousness as the stars 
for ever and ever." 



Ill 



ESSENTIALS TO RIGHT MISSIONARY CULTURE 
OF OUR YOUNG PEOPLE 1 

THE choice of this topic and the form in which it 
is stated are a very gratifying recognition on 
the part of this conference that a certain import- 
ance attaches to the missionary culture of our young 
people. I congratulate the Baptist denomination 
that it has at last made this discovery. From a 
boy — and I dare not confess how many years ago 
that was — I have attended missionary conventions 
and conferences without number, and floods of elo- 
quence have been poured upon my devoted head. 
I have never heard this topic, or one remotely 
resembling it, I will not say discussed, but so 
much as mentioned ; or, if I have, it was men- 
tioned in so perfunctory and ineffective a way as to 
leave no impression upon a mind fairly impression- 
able. Let us hope that this recognition of the 
weight and significance of this question, though it 
is a trifle tardy, is permanent — that having come at 
last, it has come to stay. 

For I make no secret, here or elsewhere, of my 

1 An address delivered before the New York City Missionary Con- 
ference, February 13, 1894. 

36 



TALKS TO BAPTIST YOUNG PEOPLE 37 

own deep conviction that the missionary culture of 
our young people is the key to the future of the 
missionary cause, that it contains in itself the 
promise and the potency of a world-wide evangeli- 
zation. The kingdoms of this world shall indeed 
become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ, 
but we shall never see even a promising beginning 
of that great conquest until we start this missionary 
enterprise at the bottom, with the missionary cul- 
ture of the young people. We have long enough 
tried to build our pyramid from the apex down. 
Three generations of American Baptists have come, 
and the greater part of the third generation have 
gone, since our denominational missionary work was 
begun, and what have we accomplished compared 
with what we might have done, with what it was 
alike our privilege and our duty to do ? Let us for 
a generation reverse our methods and see what 
under the blessing of God may ensue. There is 
to-day no more pressing necessity in our denomina- 
tion ; there is no work in which the field is riper 
for the harvest ; there is nothing that promises 
greater returns for the investment of pastoral labor 
and thought ; there is no opportunity more truly 
golden in all its limitless possibilities; than this 
missionary culture of our young people. But our 
pastors and leaders are not half roused to this 
matter ; their eyes are not half opened to the great- 
ness and the promise of this work ; they do not 



38 TALKS TO BAPTIST YOUNG PEOPLE 

half believe in its necessity. A pastor the other 
day — he is a Doctor of Divinity, a man justly hon- 
ored in the denomination — sent me a message, by a 
common friend, to this effect : " Tell Mr. Vedder 
that he is wasting his time, his strength, and his 
abilities, in this young people's movement, and he 
will live to regret it." I say to you before God 
to-day, that the only thing I shall ever regret will 
be that I have had but one life and one man's 
strength to give to the service of God in this way. 
But while pastors of experience, of learning, of 
weight in our denominational councils, think and 
speak thus, is it any wonder that the missionary 
culture of our young people is little esteemed and 
less practised in our churches ? 

i. The first essential of the right missionary cul- 
ture of our young people is the awakening of the 
conscience. We must begin at the beginning, with 
the universal, the perpetual obligation of the Great 
Commission : " Go ye therefore, and make disci- 
ples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name 
of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy 
Ghost : teaching them to observe all things whatso- 
ever I commanded you : and lo, I am with you 
alway, even unto the end of the world." Christian 
missions exist because of this command of the Lord 
Jesus Christ. Until that command was laid upon 
his disciples, as a duty of universal application and 
of perpetual continuance, the religion of Christ was 



TALKS TO BAPTIST YOUNG PEOPLE 39 

not a missionary religion. The day when that 
command ceases to be regarded as obligatory, Chris- 
tianity will cease to be a missionary religion. 
Other motives may be allowed to supplement this, 
they may be welcomed and utilized as adjuncts, but 
they can never be regarded as substitutes. We 
shall fail, and we shall deserve to fail, if we make 
our chief appeal to anything else than the obliga- 
tion of every follower of Christ to obey his Lord's 
last injunction to his church. And the reason why 
the missionary cause languishes to-day is that the 
professed followers of Christ do not really believe 
that this command lays any duty on their con- 
sciences. You and I do not fully believe it. We 
only believe that we believe it. It is not one of 
those solemn convictions, rooted in the very depths 
of our being, that fashion all our thinking and con- 
trol all our living. It is not an overmastering sense 
of obligation toward the living God, from which we 
are not able to free ourselves for an hour, that is 
present in our sub-consciousness, whatever else may 
be occupying our minds and engaging our activities. 
No man can be said really to believe a thing until 
it takes hold of him in this way and becomes a part 
of his soul. A man cannot be said to believe in 
God until, by union of soul with Jesus Christ, God 
has become to him an omnipresent reality, until 

Closer is he than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet. 

And no man believes in the duty of discipling all 



40 TALKS TO BAPTIST YOUNG PEOPLE 

the nations, as a personal obligation, until his sense 
of duty unfulfilled haunts alike his sleeping and his 
waking hours. 

Has this first, this chief requisite in the right 
missionary culture of our young people had due 
recognition in the past ? Has it due recognition 
now? Answer, you pastors, teachers, parents. 
Have you inculcated this duty upon those com- 
mitted to your charge as patiently, unweariedly, in- 
telligently, tactfully, as you have inculcated other 
duties owed to God ? Have you given as much 
emphasis to the duty to disciple all the nations as 
you have to the duty to follow Christ in baptism ? 
Have you made as much of this duty as you have 
of our denominational peculiarities ? If not, what 
excuse have you before God for such failure ? I 
fear that we have none of us declared the whole 
truth of God, because we have not preserved the 
due relation of its parts ; and we have made of the 
Great Commission a matter of subsidiary, of trifling 
importance, in our own lives and in our teaching, 
instead of magnifying it as the foremost of duties 
owed by every redeemed soul to the Lord who has 
redeemed him. Let us try the opposite method 
hereafter in the missionary culture of young Chris- 
tians, and in all our instruction make of the Great 
Commission what the New Testament makes of it 
— the great motive power and the permanent in- 
spiration of Christian missions. 



TALKS TO BAPTIST YOUNG PEOPLE 41 

2. The second essential to right missionary cul- 
ture of our young people is the imparting of sound 
knowledge regarding missions. The enlightening of 
the mind naturally and properly follows the awak- 
ening of the conscience. Here again, if faith is to 
be judged by works, our pastors and teachers are 
rank unbelievers in the necessity of educating the 
young people regarding missions. It is true that 
until recently they have had some justification for the 
neglect of this essential work in the lack of a suit- 
able missionary literature. That justification no 
longer exists. I wonder how many of the pastors 
present have heard of the Missionary Conquest 
Course ? A department with this title is conducted 
in the " Baptist Union," the organ of our Baptist 
young people, by Mrs. Sophie Bronson Tittering- 
ton, the daughter of Baptist missionaries, born in 
one of our mission stations, and the wife of a Bap- 
tist pastor. A mission field is selected for each 
month ; three numbers of the paper during the 
month contain miscellaneous readings concerning 
the country, the people, the native religion, and the 
history of missions in that field, carefully gathered 
and arranged with rare skill ; while the fourth num- 
ber of the month contains a suggested and sugges- 
tive programme of a missionary concert for the 
whole church, to be conducted by the young people 
under the direction of the pastor. In a multitude of 
churches where this method has been adopted, new 



42 TALKS TO BAPTIST YOUNG PEOPLE 

life has been infused into that dead or moribund 
institution, the missionary concert ; new interest 
has been aroused in missions among the entire 
membership of the church ; contributions have been 
doubled ; and the minds of earnest young Chris- 
tians have been turning toward the mission field, 
with the prayer, " Lord, what wilt thou have me to 
do?" But if there is a Baptist church in the city 
of New York that has a missionary conquest class 
among its young people, or a missionary concert 
conducted in whole or in part in their interest and 
by their co-operation, I have yet to hear of either. 
Positively, I am ashamed of New York and of our 
churches here that they have lagged so far behind in 
this work. All through the smaller cities and the 
rural districts, the pastors and the young people have 
taken up this work with enthusiasm and success, 
but we are doing nothing. Little country churches, 
on which we are accustomed to look down as behind 
the times, are far in advance of us, and by what 
they are accomplishing administer a very salutary 
rebuke to our complacency. It is time for these 
metropolitan churches and pastors to wake up, to 
arrive at some just conception of the importance of 
this work, and then take hold of it with vigor and 
determination. 

The Missionary Conquest Course is not the only 
recent provision of missionary literature for young 
Baptists. Our Publication Society has already is- 



TALKS TO BAPTIST YOUNG PEOPLE 43 

sued several volumes and has in preparation still 
others, of a very high grade of excellence. You 
are doubtless familiar with Dr. Downie's " History 
of the Telugu Mission," and possibly with Mrs. 
Titterington's popular work on missions in foreign 
lands, called "A Century of Baptist Missions." 
There are no better books of their kind than these. 
Our indefatigable home secretary, whose eye seems 
to see everything and whose heart is quick to re- 
spond to what he sees, has perceived the need of 
guidance in this educational work and, in connec- 
tion with others, is perfecting a broad and compre- 
hensive scheme of missionary study and reading for 
our young people. I hope that a similar work will 
speedily be done in behalf of our home missions. 
But the chief difficulty is not now with lack of ma- 
terial, it is the lack of disposition to use any material. 
The best educational machine depends for its actual 
efficiency on how it is worked ; and the success of 
these and all other plans for the missionary culture 
of our young people is in the hands of you pastors, 
and of other pastors like you. Do you believe that 
the young people need this education, that this is 
really an essential to their right missionary culture ? 
If so, I pray you, let your faith be shown hereafter 
by your works. 

3. A third essential in the right missionary cul- 
ture of our young people is their employment in 
missionary work. This young people's movement 



44 TALKS TO BAPTIST YOUNG PKOPX.E 

of our day was begun and continues to exist be- 
cause of an imperious demand on the part of young 
Christians that they be allowed to do something. 
They are willing to be exhorted, to be taught ; but 
this they regard as a preparation for service. And 
they are perfectly right. Of what use is it to awaken 
conscience and stimulate the sense of duty, if we end 
there ? Every time the voice of conscience is sup- 
pressed or unheeded, every time the impulse of duty 
is suffered to die away without embodying itself in 
action, the Christian is made just that much weaker 
and ineffective and gospel-hardened. In like man- 
ner, enlightenment of the mind, instruction in the 
history and present state of missions, is a labor not 
worth the undertaking if its end is only a mere in- 
crease of knowledge. 

I have said that the young people demand that 
they be allowed to do something. They will do 
something. If pastors and parents do not provide 
them with a legitimate outlet for their activities, 
they will find an illegitimate outlet. Pastors often 
complain that young Christians show such a ten- 
dency to engage in amusements that are of doubtful 
expediency at best, and are often demoralizing. But 
this is mainly due to the fact that pastors have not 
found something better for their young Christians 
to do. A child can pour water into an empty bottle, 
but not all the wit of an Edison can devise means 
of pouring water into a frill bottle. 



TALKS TO BAPTIST YOUNG PEOPLE 45 

Engaging in missionary service will tend to correct 
a false impression among our young people that the 
only missions are foreign missions, that a wide gulf 
yawns between discipling men across the ocean and 
discipling men at our own doors ; that none are 
fully obeying the Great Commission but those who 
are carrying the gospel to the heathen. I can well 
remember the time when this was my idea of mis- 
sions, and shall never forget how there came to me 
as a new and wonderful discovery the conception of 
the unity of the missionary work. 

4. I shall mention, as the last essential in the 
right missionary culture of our young people, train- 
ing in systematic giving. We all believe in sys- 
tematic giving, after a sort ; that is to say, it is one 
of those things that we urge on everybody else, 
and seldom practise for ourselves. However, it is 
something, perhaps, that we all concede it to be ad- 
mirable in theory. What I maintain is, that while 
training in systematic giving is desirable for all 
Christians, it is essential in the training of young 
Christians. Habits are formed early in life — we all 
know that ; and when- formed they are very hard to 
change — we all know that. But why do we not 
apply some of this very ordinary knowledge to the 
missionary culture of our young people, and not 
act as if we lacked the very rudiments of common 
sense and the elementary truths of human experi- 
ence ? There is not a pastor here who does not 



46 TALKS TO BAPTIST YOUNG PEOPLE 

know that if the giving spirit is not cultivated in 
the young it is almost hopeless to attempt to evoke 
it from men and women of mature years. If Chris- 
tians are not taught to give systematically, if they 
do not learn the blessedness of giving when they 
are young and relatively poor, they can seldom be 
induced to give, or find any blessing in giving, when 
they are old and absolutely rich. And yet can any 
pastor here say that he has any working plan in his 
church for the training of his young people in sys- 
tematic giving ? If you have one tell us about it. 

I have said nothing in all this about the appeal 
to emotion. I fear that in the past — and the state- 
ment of my theme may be taken to recognize this 
fact — the best methods of missionary culture may 
not always have been pursued. In my boyhood 
such desultory missionary instruction as was given 
laid far too much stress upon the romance of mis- 
sions. We read missionary literature, much as we 
sometimes surreptitiously read dime novels, for the 
tales of adventure, the sufferings, and hair-breadth 
escapes of the early missionaries. This was not al- 
together due to the innate depravity of the small 
boy ; in the missionary sermons and addresses of 
that day this feature of the missionary's work was 
emphasized and dwelt upon, until the impressions 
made by these things quite obliterated from the 
minds of many children any other idea connected 
with missions. The mistake was made in such in- 



TALKS TO BAPTIST YOUNG PEOPLE 47 

struction of appealing too exclusively to the emo- 
tions. The young are naturally emotional and are 
easily roused by such appeals, hence the tendency 
is to overdo the matter, to rely on emotionalism too 
exclusively. In all our work the temptation is to 
follow the line of least resistance, to do not that which 
most needs to be done and will produce most per- 
manent results when done, but to do that which is 
done most easily. I by no means disparage the ap- 
peal to the emotions in connection with the mission- 
ary culture of our young people. I sincerely pity 
one whose heart has never burned within him and 
whose eyes have not been wetted with tears, as he 
has listened to that story of woman's devotion, un- 
equaled in the history of missions, unsurpassed in 
the annals of the church — the story of Ann Hassel- 
tine Judson at Ava, when, with her new-born babe 
at her breast, scarcely able to stand for weakness, 
she daily visited her husband in his foul prison-pen 
and ministered to him in his misery like an angel 
from heaven. The history of missions is full of 
deeds of heroism and Christian fortitude. God has 
given to his churches a great host of men and 
women of whom the world was not worthy, to carry 
the banner of the Cross into the darkest regions of 
the earth. The church on earth and in heaven is 
the richer for their lives, and we should do ill to 
withhold from our children their heritage in this 
noble Christian service or deprive them of its in- 



48 TALKS TO BAPTIST YOUNG PEOPLE 

spiration to self-sacrifice and endurance for Christ's 
sake. But this appeal to the emotions should be 
the last stage in the missionary culture of our 
young people, the culmination of the work, not its 
beginning, and still less its entire substance. It 
should not be made too frequently, and it should 
never be made until the essentials to right mission- 
ary culture have had due recognition and faithful 
application. 

I hope I may be pardoned if I have seemed to 
any to speak with too much vehemence or incisive- 
ness. I have spoken in no bitter or censorious 
spirit. I have merely tried to convey to you a por- 
tion of my own conviction that the pastors of our 
churches are the decisive factors in all the Christian 
culture of our young people. Unless they are 
aroused to the work, unless they give themselves 
to it with all their souls, it is doomed to failure. 
And failure in this means failure for a whale genera- 
tion to accomplish the work that God has put into 
our hands. He has set before us an open door and 
no man can shut it ; but we can be blind enough 
and indolent enough and faithless enough not to 
enter that door of opportunity ; we can miss the 
future of splendid service and of glorious reward 
that may be ours, if we do not hearken to the voice 
of God and go forward. 



IV 



IN the year of our Lord 3000, when Maeaulay's 
traveler from New Zealand shall stand on a 
broken arch of London bridge to sketch the ruins 
of St. Paul's, the Gibbon of Timbuctoo will doubt- 
less be composing his history of the decline and fall 
of the American Republic. In his account of the 
astonishing progress of the American people in the 
nineteenth century, he will say something like this : 
"More wonderful, more far-reaching in results 
than this marvelous material development that I 
have described, was the religious history of this 
people. There were three great movements or 
waves of progress in spiritual life that especially 
characterized this age. The first was the mighty 
missionary movement, which, though originating in 
a previous century, came to full development only 
in this, and found expression in those vast mission- 
ary organizations that are still the wonder of the 
world. The second movement was the great im- 
pulse given to the religious training of children, 

1 An address delivered at the Fourth International Convention of 
the Baptist Young People's Union of America, at Toronto, July 20, 
1894. 

D 49 



50 TALKS TO BAPTIST YOUNG PEOPLE 

that found its embodiment in the Sunday-school. 
The third wave of spiritual progress was the splen- 
did uprising of young Christians for the salvation 
and the training in Christian service of young men 
and women. This, finding its first expression in 
the Christian Association, was later more perfectly 
embodied in the various organizations that made 
the young people's work an integral part of the 
local church. Of these organizations, one of the 
earliest, most active, and most permanent in its in- 
fluence, was the institution known as the Baptist 
Young People's Union of America." 

Why do I believe that the coming historian will 
write thus of the work of this Union ? Because I 
see in its promiseful present the earnest of a future 
still more glorious. The Christian Culture Courses 
are one of the chief elements of this prophecy ; in 
them is the supreme promise and potency of per- 
manent existence for this organization and its work. 

Once more, why ? There has been great danger 
from the first that this young people's movement 
would eventually expire of inanition, because it was 
too exclusively inspired by mere gush and senti- 
ment. You might as well try to build Massey Hall 
on a foundation of hydrogen gas, as to found a 
great religious movement on mere enthusiasm. I 
do not counsel the repressing of enthusiasm — we 
are in no present danger of having too much of it. 
I do not belittle its value, which is great — in its 



TALKS TO BAPTIST YOUNG PEOPLE 5 1 

own place. Enthusiasm is to the soul as a draught 
of generous wine to the body : it rouses, it stimu- 
lates, it fires, it makes every pulse beat to a live- 
lier rhythm ; but in excess it intoxicates, and the 
reaction leaves the soul pale and sick and enfeebled. 
The wise physician knows that alcohol has its use, 
its legitimate and proper use, as a stimulant to the 
weakened and diseased body ; but he also knows 
that it is to be administered with as much caution as 
any other deadly poison, and that it can never take 
the place of food. Many of our Christians, many of 
our churches, are in such a state of coldness and 
paralysis and collapse, that they need the stimulus 
of a great surge of enthusiasm to arouse them from 
their icy slumbers and give them an uplift and an im- 
pulse to their spiritual life. This is the good office 
of the enthusiasm generated by the young people's 
movement ; but once the spiritual life is awakened 
it needs food for its sustenance, not more stimu- 
lants. It is the special distinction of the Baptist 
Young People's Union — and in this it stands prac- 
tically alone among young people's organizations — 
that it undertakes to feed young Christians, that it 
attempts to put underneath its work a solid basis of 
Christian knowledge, and thus to develop enduring 
Christian character. It is this educational feature 
that discriminates our work from that of other or- 
ganizations, and in this is the prophecy of its con- 
tinuous beneficence. 



52 TALKS TO BAPTIST YOUNG PKOPLE 

In the Christian Culture Courses I behold, then, 
the prophecy of a coming generation of biblical 
Baptists. Other Christians may, if they choose, 
appeal to the authority of creed or council or prel- 
ate in confirmation of their doctrine and polity. 
We are estopped from making any such appeal by 
our profession of the Bible alone as our sole and 
sufficient authority in all things pertaining to faith 
and practice. If this profession of ours is not a 
mere form of words, if we really mean something 
by it, then it becomes us, beyond all other Chris- 
tians, to be reverent, earnest, patient, persevering, 
prayerful students of the word of God. As a de- 
nomination we take our stand on the " impregnable 
rock of Holy Scripture " ; as individual believers, 
therefore, we are pledged to be mighty in the Scrip- 
tures — to know them through and through. 

In this mastery of the word of God is our one 
hope of denominational unity or even of denomina- 
tional existence. And especially is it the hope of 
our Young People's Baptist Union of America. 
For, as has so often been said in our gatherings, 
and said so truly, we do not depend for our unity 
as Baptist young people on any name or method of 
work or form of organization ; our sole bond of 
unity is the New Testament, in the full affirmation 
of whose teachings we are one people, with one 
mission. I hail the Bible Readers' Course as a 
prophecy of the time when every Baptist shall be 



TALKS TO BAPTIST YOUNG PEOPLE 53 

deeply read in the Scriptures — a man of God thor- 
oughly furnished unto all good works. 

In this mastery of the word of God is the 
prophecy also of a truer denominational loyalty. 
The great lack of our Baptist hosts to-day is a loy- 
alty resting on intelligent denominational convic- 
tions. We boast of our more than three million 
American Baptists, but before our strength can be 
justly estimated we need to weigh as well as count 
those three millions. If there were any scales deli- 
cate enough to test denominational loyalty, there 
are many of these three millions who would be 
found to weigh minus three hundred pounds. I 
have a mantle of charity broad enough to cover all 
sorts and conditions of men, except the disloyal. I 
love, as a dear brother in Christ, everybody who has 
convictions and abides steadfastly by them. I 
heartily respect a staunch Presbyterian or Congre- 
gation alist or Methodist ; but from my heart of 
hearts I utterly abominate and despise a Presby- 
Congre-Metho-Baptist. And yet, we should rather 
pity than despise such. They do not intend to be 
disloyal to Christ and his truth : they are ill 
instructed — that is their chief lack. They have 
never really grasped the thought that what we call 
our distinctive Baptist principles are distinctively 
New Testament principles. They have never really 
learned that Baptists stand apart from other Chris- 
tians, not because they so choose, but because they 



54 TALKS TO BAPTIST YOUNG PEOPLE 

must ; that no one ever becomes a true Baptist by 
accident or of preference, but because loyalty to 
Christ and the truth will not permit him to be any- 
thing else. If Baptists stand for nothing in par- 
ticular, if one thing is just as true as another, then 
in God's name let us cease to be guilty of the sin 
of causing needless schism in the body of Christ. 
But if we stand for precious truth, truth without 
which the world would be poorer, truth that we 
cannot surrender without treason to the Lord who 
has redeemed us, if we stand for unswerving obedi- 
ence to Christ in all things, let us pray that we 
" may be able to withstand in the evil day, and, 
having done all, to stand/'* I hail this Bible 
Readers' Course because it is a prophecy of coming 
generations that shall be loyal to God's truth, to 
the whole truth, and to nothing but the truth. 

I behold in these Christian Culture Courses the 
prophecy of a coming generation of missionary Bap- 
tists. It is our boast as a denomination that we 
stand for obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ — obe- 
dience absolute, complete, unquestioning. We do 
not pick and choose from the commandments of 
Christ ; we profess obedience, not to some part, 
but to the whole of what he has bidden. But do 
we make good this profession ? Have we obeyed, 
are we obeying the Great Commission ? Do we 
recognize that this commandment is binding upon 
us, do we realize its perpetual obligation and moral 



i 



TALKS TO BAPTIST YOUNG PEOPLE 55 

weight ? No. All our missionary enterprises are 
languishing to-day, they are sending out urgent ap- 
peals for more men and more money, because you 
and I do not really believe that this command lays 
any direct personal obligation upon us. The con 
sciences of our Baptist young people require first of 
all to be awakened and instructed regarding their 
relation to the great missionary enterprises of the 
denomination. 

But it is not enough to awaken the conscience ; 
we must enlighten their minds. It is in vain to 
look for missionary enthusiasm without a basis of 
knowledge. We must see to it that young Baptists 
get some adequate idea of the wonderful progress 
of missions in our own day, of their no less won- 
derful history during past ages of the church. I 
hail the Missionary Conquest Course as a prophecy 
of the day when all Baptists shall be thoroughly in- 
structed in the history and current work of mis- 
sions. Let us encourage our young people to read 
the inspiring story of the conquest of the world for 
Christ. Let them read it and ponder on it until 
their zeal is kindled for this great cause, until they 
too become a part of this ever-widening work. Let 
them read, until their hearts burn within them, the 
story of supreme devotion, of heroic self-sacrifice, that 
marks every step of missionary conquest. And as 
they read and study of the great host of consecrated 
men and women of whom the world was not wor- 



56 TALKS TO BAPTIST YOUNG PEOPLE 

thy, who have carried the banner of the Cross to 
the farthest corners of the earth, may it not be that 
in their hearts, in no false glamour of would-be 
heroism, but with true devotion to Christ, many of 
these young students shall say, " Here am I, send 
me." 

I behold in these Christian Culture Courses the 
prophecy of a coming generation who shall be self- 
respecting Baptists. We have been too self -abased, 
too apologetic, too much inclined to stand with our 
hats in our hands before other denominations, hum- 
bly begging their pardon for presuming to exist. 
Society has told us that it is " bad form " to be a 
Baptist until we have come to believe it. Others 
have looked down on us so long that we have come 
to look down on ourselves. I hail the Sacred Lit- 
erature Course as a prophecy of the time when 
Baptists shall understand that the highest distinc- 
tion that earth or heaven can bestow is the 
privilege of standing fast for the truth once deliv- 
ered to the saints. In that course our Baptist young 
people will study the constancy in all ages of men 
and women who have counted life itself not dear if 
they might witness to the truth. They will learn 
that as Baptists they have a noble lineage — there 
is none nobler in the world. In this democratic 
age we smile at the claims of long descent, or at 
least we affect to smile ; but there is not one of us 
whose heart does not beat higher as he thinks that 



TALKS TO BAPTIST YOUNG PEOPLE 57 

his fathers in the faith were a godly folk ; that 
though they have lacked patents of nobility or pre- 
latic ordination, they were "nobles by right of an 
earlier creation, and priests by the imposition of a 
mightier Hand." When all men acknowledged the 
supremacy of church and pope, they stood forth 
and proclaimed the supremacy of the Scriptures. 
When all men said that heterodoxy was a crime 
and a sin, to be extirpated by fire and sword, they 
contended for the liberty of every believer to inter- 
pret the Scriptures for himself. There is hardly a 
square rod of ground in all Europe that has not 
been reddened with Baptist blood shed in defense 
of these principles. And later, when a few Chris- 
tian men and one Christian State had arrived so far 
toward a knowledge of the gospel as to be convinced 
that it is wrong, or at least inexpedient, to perse- 
cute one's fellow-Christians for the sole crime of 
differing from the majority in religious belief — when 
they at last concluded that they would graciously 
"tolerate" some differences of opinion — what did 
our ancestors then ? With one voice they said : 
" Away with your toleration. Toleration is arro- 
gant assumption, it is bigotry, it is intolerance. 
Give us liberty, full, untrammeled, unquestioned." 
And there they §tood, never budging an inch, 
until the opinion of civilized Christendom slowly 
advanced to their position. And, thanks to the 
bravery, the fidelity to truth, the tenacity of pur- 



58 TALKS TO BAPTIST YOUNG PEOPLE 

pose of our Baptist forefathers, men may freely 
worship God according to the dictates of their own 
consciences, without fear of molestation, in every 
spot on the globe where float the Stars and Stripes 
or the red cross of St. George. When Baptists learn 
these things, when they recall them with just pride, 
then shall they understand that they are sprung 
from princes in the Israel of God, the peers of any 
men beneath the stars. 

Finally, I behold in these Christian Culture 
Courses the prophecy of the certain triumph of 
the truth. "Truth is mighty, and will prevail/' we 
say, for "the eternal years of God are hers." But 
in the divine economy abstract truth never has pre- 
vailed, and we have no reason to hope that abstract 
truth ever will prevail. It is concrete truth, truth 
incarnated in godly men and women, that has the 
promise of ultimate victory. One truth, the great 
principle of soul liberty, has vanquished all opposi- 
tion, because it was held and defended and advo- 
cated by men who could die but could not yield. If 
other truths dear to Baptists are to become the 
common heritage of mankind, they will prevail over 
error because we and our successors hold, defend, 
and advocate them in the same dauntless spirit. 
There is a vast fund of latent heroism among our 
young people, that needs only to be roused, to be 
instructed, to be guided, for the raising up of cham- 
pions of the truth equal in fortitude and constancy 



TALKS TO BAPTIST YOUNG PEOPLE 59 

to any the world has ever seen. These Christian Cul- 
ture Courses are to train an army of young Baptists 
in intelligent, consistent fidelity to the Scriptures 
and their teachings, who shall be such a power to 
spread the truth as no age of the church has known. 
The future holds in store for us as a people great 
things, if we are but faithful to the trust God is 
reposing in us. He has led us to the very borders 
of Canaan, and we can see that it is a goodly land, 
flowing with milk and honey. Let us hear his 
voice as to-day he says, " Forward," and as one 
man let us go up in the name of the Lord and pos- 
sess the land. 



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